Then Roger Holland finalized the bid documents for the new North Shelby School and the documents were sent out for bid. I looked over the building specifications and found major problems. I sent written notice to every school board member that the school air conditioning system chiller had been specified by Holland to use a banned refrigerant and such equipment was also illegal to build in the USA. Also the equipment specified was a low efficiency out dated model such that if you scrapped it brand new and bought an efficient model, power bill savings would pay it off in just a few years. Not a word back from Bully and his cronies. So, I just decided to let Bully do his thing, waste taxpayer money and then report it. as we go. This is an election year and Bully is up for re-election.
By the way, the low bid was $12.4 million. Hickory Construction got the job and no Cleveland County subcontractors will be getting a piece of the action-according to reports. So Cleveland County taxpayers, the cost of building the new North Shelby School just went up $2.4 million and none of the 25,000 county residents on Food Stamps will get any work out of the project. Just Catawba County workers. Ain’t that nice. Something like the county commissioners would do. Stupidity in the name of economic development.
Then, more recently, the dirt issue raised it’s ugly head. Holland and company decided that the unacceptable dirt issue for the project was so risky that a bunch of so called “geo-piers” seven to 24 feet deep would be required to further stabilize the unacceptable soil prior to construction. Who knows if this will be enough to pass building code requirements?? But no matter, more money will fix that too. Building the new North Shelby School at another location as Danny Blanton suggested look more and more like the thing to do.
Now the cost of construction for the new North Shelby School has skyrocketed to $13.5 million. That does not even count the $1.1 million CCS already spent, but tried to hide, on the project by charging certain work to the James Love School account when the work was actually required because of the new North Shelby School. I believe the legal term for spending out of one government account for something else is FRAUD. Fraud is a crime. Somebody read this article to the District Attorney.
Anyway, if you add all this up, the new North Shelby School is presently estimated to cost $14.6 million for about 88 students. In comparison, the Pinnacle Classical Academy (a new Charter School in Cleveland County), is building a K-12 school for about the same amount using private money for over 800 students. CCS is spending ten times as much per student. Pinnacle Classical Academy, in temporary quarters, is already scoring better than CCS in so many ways. Folks, are you getting the message? The Pinnacle Classical Academy Board of Directors are doing things the smart way and the CCS Board, run by Bully Glover, are doing things the stupid way. Bad stupid. Read on.
The “official” groundbreaking for the new North Shelby School was scheduled for 2:30 PM Sunday February 26, 2017, One year and four days after the bad decision to locate this school at the James Love location and all the other bad decisions along the way. Bully and his buddies had proved themselves right. They were going to build this school no matter what it cost. no matter how many mistakes were made and no matter how much of the cost over-runs were just a pure waste of taxpayer money.